Xenarra: The Dragon Throne - Chapter 21 Arrogance

After breaking camp, we carried on following the road. It wasn’t that bad in terms of the mud on the road any more, although it was still dark so we couldn’t go that quickly as we still had to watch our footing carefully. Not much happened, as it was dark there were not many animals about so it was silent except for the sound of our walking. No one said anything though.

That was the first time we had killed someone. A real person. It feels different from the demons. I know it was life or death. But killing someone. He had a life. A family probably as well. My mind wandered down that route. What would happen to the family, probably into slavery due to the debt they would build up. Then my shoulder was slapped by Anubis. “Don’t go down that thought track Adoh, it is a ‘spiral into madness’. All you need to think, is that it was life or death, you or him, if you didn’t kill him, you would be dead.”

His words seemed to snap me out of the spiral into madness as he put. As I looked ahead, I could see the tree’s thinning out, signaling the end of the forest itself. I let out a sigh of relief as there is little chance of us being attacked now.

As we finally managed to get out of the forest, what greeted us was a sight which I really didn’t want to see. There were around a couple of hundred armoured soldiers. But they were not part of the army. By the looks of it they were a noble’s private guard. My squad and I quickly formed a line in front of Anubis, who had got off of his horse as soon as he saw what was ahead. In his hands was the bow of the dead archer from the assassin, he also had the arrows in a bag slung across his back and one of their knives held to him by his belt.

I looked across our new opponents carefully, they were slowly getting into some kind of formation. But the speed they were doing it at meant two things. One they think that they could kill us easily no matter what we do or what I am hoping for, two they are useless and have not been trained so that means their combat ability will be crap giving us a chance to get out of here alive.

Someone on a horse then came out of their ranks, coming towards us. Just by looking at his face I had already determined he was one of those arrogant nobles who were useless and had inherited everything they owned, thinking that they were better than others. After being about five meters in front of us he stopped. In the arrogant, self important tone I expected to have, “Ah, why don’t you hand over this messenger and we can all be on our way? Some money could be in it for you. If you hand him over?”

I laughed. I know that it would remove all chances of a deal and could lead to our deaths. But does that really mean that we would abandon our orders at the sight of a couple hundred guards and a bag of gold. We had charged the same number of demons for God sake and this buffoon thought that we would give Anubis up. “Why don’t you get down from that high horse of yours and come down here and fight me for him. Or are you going to send your men in and cause some to die, hiding behind them. You are a disgrace to your family.”

His men behind him, started looking side to side and whispering among themselves. I smiled at his reaction, it seems like my second guess was right, they are untrained and also not that loyal it seems. The noble looked back at his men. Seeing that no one was moving to help him even after he had indicated to attack, he got off his horse. Off of his horse he took out a sword. I walked towards him, “To first blood, right? I can’t kill a noble, it would get me in a lot of trouble.” All he did was nod and grip his sword.

We were standing facing each other in the middle of our two parties. Him holding his longsword I guessed. I had a sword in my right hand and my shield in my left. He started by stabbing me. It was so clumsy, it was wobbling as his strike came in, like he couldn’t bear the sword’s weight. I gave a simple parry with my shield. Blocking his attack with very little effort as I expected. Then with my sword he gave his arm a little cut causing him to bleed.

With the cut I gave him, he fell back screaming in pain. I froze for a second. I hadn’t cut him hard I thought. I looked down at his arm seeing what I thought I did. “So we will be on our way then, as I won.” I went back and grabbed my spear, heading off with the others. The nobles guards opened a path through them. We walked through it, watching them all carefully for any kind of movement. Then just as we were about to get through them all the nobles voice rang out. “Kill them, he cut me, kill them all!”

“Shit!” I used my spear effectively as I could killing the only guards left in the way. Running off on the road towards the city, which now wasn’t that far away. Right behind me and the others were the noble’s guards, who had built up some couarde and seemed to be up for a fight at long last. We were running and running for around twenty minutes, it seemed like the guards were not going to be giving up so easily. “Anubis, ride ahead, get to the city, we will slow them down. Looking at my chest, I pulled the medallion off my neck. Use this, get us help!” I slapped the horse’s ass sending it off. “Hurry up!” I yell.

Then with the others formed a circle formation. Once all of our shields were locked and spears pointing out. The guards hit us. It was a mighty bang. A few of them ended up impaling themselves on the spears that were pointing out towards them. The rest began to move around us. Trapping us in. I was surprised our formation didn’t break due to the sheer amount of them. Then they were pushing in so close, I gave the order to drop spears and we all drew our swords.

None of us moved that much, only an occasional bash with the shield and a quick stab. Most of the fight was them pushing at us with their weight trying to make a gap. Some tried to use their weapons but they were all too big for a fight like this. Then I heard that annoying noble voice again, “Trapped are we now. You will all die here, for hitting this noble personage.”

“Damm, I wish I killed that twat now.” The others just smiled and carried on the simple tactic we were using. “Hold on guys, help will arrive soon.” The next part I didn’t say out loud.

I hope.